Philosophy Discussion Forums

Consul wrote: ↑June 5th, 2019, 2:46 pm

Atla wrote: ↑June 5th, 2019, 1:35 pmI mean standard philosophical materialism which sees matter as fundamental.

No definition of materialism/physicalism I know renders a neurophysiological explanation of mind/consciousness impossible by definition.

Atla wrote: ↑June 5th, 2019, 1:35 pm Also wishful thinking. You pulled the complexity card, but again there is no known reason why complexity would anything have to do with matter acquiring qualia.
Neuroscience of consciousness isn't all that new, as I said we have by now mapped the inner mechanisms of the human brain/mind to a remarkable detail. The last 100 years were really fruitful, and despite that, nothing about matter acquiring qualia was found.
And saying that there is something going on in the brain that can't be going on in the rest of the universe contradicts the known laws of physics

Rubbish! Mind and consciousness depend upon physical systems with the right degree and the right sort of (structural, functional, and informational) complexity, and animal brains (integrated into animal organisms) are the only (natural) physical systems in the cosmos that have the requisite degree and sort of complexity.

What makes the antimaterialistic soul theory absurd is that it ascribes complex minds/consciousnesses to the simplest things, viz. zero-dimensional "soul-points", whose degree of structural and functional complexity is zero.

According to neuroreductive materialism, qualia are a special kind (the phenomenal one) of complex or structural physical properties of neural networks in the CNS.

Atla wrote: ↑June 5th, 2019, 1:35 pmYou say that the above is by far the most plausible and defensible assumption, I'd say it's supported by no evidence at all and contradicts physics.

No, it doesn't, and it is supported by ample scientific evidence (especially coming from medicine, anaesthesiology, psychopathology).
What's your alternative theory that you think is more strongly supported by evidence than the brain theory? Panpsychism?

Just admit that you have nothing. There is ZERO proof for qualia being "a special kind of complex or structural physical properties of neural networks in the CNS" and the rest of your comment isn't about the hard problem.

Let's throw in a few more abstract words, like all good materialists do, shall we?

Qualia is a special kind of emergent property arising functionally out of the computational complexity of neural information processing patterns in the CNS.

That sounds confusing enough so surely it's enough to do the trick?

Atla wrote: ↑June 7th, 2019, 1:32 pm

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑June 5th, 2019, 6:06 pm

Lotta whatever.
A rock is matter. That is definitive.
Get over it.

Well I can't argue with blind beliefs

Nothing to do with belief, everything to do with definition.
You do know what a rock is don't you?

Atla wrote: ↑June 7th, 2019, 2:00 pm Let's throw in a few more abstract words, like all good materialists do, shall we?

Qualia is a special kind of emergent property arising functionally out of the computational complexity of neural information processing patterns in the CNS.

That sounds confusing enough so surely it's enough to do the trick?

DO you know what a quale is?

Felix wrote: ↑June 7th, 2019, 4:58 am Albert Einstein: "The distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion, however persistent."

Tamminen: "I am not sure in what context Einstein has said this, but taken literally this is nonsense."

Here is the context:
In this passage Einstein is referring to the “block universe” conception of spacetime. It’s hardly surprising that he accepted it, since although it came from the work of others (principally from Hermann Minkowski, one of Einstein’s teachers) it is the framework in which his own theories of special and general relativity are most naturally expressed.

The block-universe view of physical reality contains time, but in a way remarkably different to our usual conception. It presents a four-dimensional view in which all events across time and space are on an equal ontological footing, with no sense in which present events are judged more “real” or “actual” than past or future ones. It is also very difficult to recover any meaningful sense in which time “flows”.

That is what I thought: Einstein was not stupid. Physical time has no present, past or future. Subjective time has, as we all know.

Tamminen wrote: ↑June 7th, 2019, 3:50 pmThat is what I thought: Einstein was not stupid. Physical time has no present, past or future.

In the eternalist 4D block universe, there is no "motion", "flow", "march", "passage", or "river" of time in the sense that what is future will become present, what is present will become past, and what is past was once present. But this doesn't mean that it lacks a temporal order or structure of events/things. Its temporal order or structure just isn't represented by the A-series of time but by the B-series with its temporal relations earlier than, later than, simultaneous with.

Tamminen wrote: ↑June 7th, 2019, 3:44 am

Consul wrote: ↑June 6th, 2019, 6:40 pm By the way, if time flows, what's its speed? One second per second? Well, that's just the number 1; and a mere number lacking a physical unit is no physical quantity at all.

Subjective time "flows" from moment to moment, that is all. And physical time does not flow at all, except relative to the subject's flow of experiences.

"If the passage of time is supposed to be literally a motion, whether of time, or of events in time, or of our consciousness through time (or spacetime), then there is prima facie a simple objection to the idea. Motion is rate of change of spatial position with respect to temporal position. What then could be meant by the motion of time itself or of motion through time? Would this motion be at the rate of one second per second? Admittedly A. N. Prior has seemed happy with this answer. However what is wrong with it can perhaps be brought out by reminding ourselves about what motion through space is. If you and I are moving with respect to one another, then your world line and mine are inclined at an angle to one another in space-time. If you and I are at rest with respect to one another then our world lines are parallel. But how on earth would one represent a movement of one second per second? It is true, as Prior points out, that after one second I have got older by a second. But equally one could say that a ruler gets larger in a left to right direction (say) by one centimeter per centimeter. There is no notion of 'flow' or 'passage' here.

If one believes, then, in the flow or passage of time, one has to take 'flow' or 'passage' in some metaphorical sense. If one believes, then, in the flow or passage of time, one has to take 'flow' or 'passage' in some metaphorical sense. Indeed what one has to do is to concentrate on what seems to be left out in the notion of 'getting older by a second per second' if this is taken in the sense in which a ruler gets larget by a centimeter per centimeter. What is allegedly left out is 'becoming'. But even this word 'becoming' has to be taken in a nonstandard sense. C. D. Broad has used the term 'absolute becoming' and Richard Taylor has the term 'pure becoming'. The question is whether one can make any clearer sense of this than one can of passage or flow as simple motion."

(Smart, J. J. C. "Time and Becoming." In Time and Cause: Essays Presented to Richard Taylor, edited by Peter van Inwagen, 3-15. Dordrecht: Springer, 1980. p. 4)

Above, you've bracketed the word "flow", which indicates that you're using it metaphorically rather than literally. But if time doesn't literally flow or move, what's the metaphorical meaning of "the flow/motion of time"?
("The notion of pure becoming itself remains as elusive to me as ever." – J. J. C. Smart, p. 7)

Consul wrote: ↑June 7th, 2019, 4:45 pm Above, you've bracketed the word "flow", which indicates that you're using it metaphorically rather than literally. But if time doesn't literally flow or move, what's the metaphorical meaning of "the flow/motion of time"?

It is the succession of experiences where I now, in subjective time, am conscious of something in physical spacetime, and then I am conscious of something else, usually something that happens later in physical time. This sequence of experiences is the internal structure of subjective time. Experiences can be thought of as discrete units of subjective time.

Atla wrote: ↑June 7th, 2019, 1:36 pm

Consul wrote: ↑June 5th, 2019, 2:46 pmNo, it doesn't, and it is supported by ample scientific evidence (especially coming from medicine, anaesthesiology, psychopathology).
What's your alternative theory that you think is more strongly supported by evidence than the brain theory? Panpsychism?

Just admit that you have nothing. There is ZERO proof for qualia being "a special kind of complex or structural physical properties of neural networks in the CNS" and the rest of your comment isn't about the hard problem.

This is the crucial question:

In the light of our scientific knowledge of the world, what is the best—most coherent, most plausible, most reasonable—ontological explanation of the empirically ascertained correlations—correspondences and dependencies—of phenomenal properties ("secondary qualities") and physical properties ("primary qualities")?

"A criterion for metaphysical truth is plausibility in the light of total science."

(Smart, J. J. C. "Physicalism and Emergence." 1982. In Essays Metaphysical and Moral: Selected Philosophical Papers, 246-255. Oxford: Blackwell, 1987. p. 248)

Consul wrote: ↑June 7th, 2019, 7:33 pm

Atla wrote: ↑June 7th, 2019, 1:36 pm Just admit that you have nothing. There is ZERO proof for qualia being "a special kind of complex or structural physical properties of neural networks in the CNS" and the rest of your comment isn't about the hard problem.

This is the crucial question:

In the light of our scientific knowledge of the world, what is the best—most coherent, most plausible, most reasonable—ontological explanation of the empirically ascertained correlations—correspondences and dependencies—of phenomenal properties ("secondary qualities") and physical properties ("primary qualities")?

"A criterion for metaphysical truth is plausibility in the light of total science."

(Smart, J. J. C. "Physicalism and Emergence." 1982. In Essays Metaphysical and Moral: Selected Philosophical Papers, 246-255. Oxford: Blackwell, 1987. p. 248)

1. If we start with defining the physical as primary and the qualia as secondary, then we are simply begging the question. In other words we first decide that materialism is correct, and then try to fit qualia into the picture (usually using the magical thinking of hard emergence).

2. Since there is ZERO scientific evidence that qualia is a restricted to neural networks, the best scientific explanation is that qualia isn't restricted to neural networks.

Atla wrote: ↑June 8th, 2019, 4:16 am1. If we start with defining the physical as primary and the qualia as secondary, then we are simply begging the question. In other words we first decide that materialism is correct, and then try to fit qualia into the picture (usually using the magical thinking of hard emergence).

No, the traditional philosophical terms "primary quality" and "secondary quality" as used by Locke and others don't presuppose materialism. In fact, Locke wasn't a materialist, and neither was Berkeley:

"Some there are who make a Distinction betwixt Primary and Secondary Qualities: By the former, they mean Extension, Figure, Motion, Rest, Solidity or Impenetrability and Number: By the latter they denote all other sensible Qualities, as Colours, Sounds, Tastes, and so forth. The Ideas we have of these they acknowledge not to be the Resemblances of any thing existing without the Mind or unperceived; but they will have our Ideas of the primary Qualities to be Patterns or Images of Things which exist without the Mind, in an unthinking Substance which they call Matter. By Matter therefore we are to understand an inert, senseless Substance, in which Extension, Figure, and Motion, do actually subsist. But it is evident from what we have already shewn, that Extension, Figure and Motion are only Ideas existing in the Mind, and that an Idea can be like nothing but another Idea, and that consequently neither They nor their Archetypes can exist in an unperceiving Substance. Hence it is plain, that that the very Notion of what is called Matter or Corporeal Substance, involves a Contradiction in it.

They who assert that Figure, Motion, and the rest of the Primary or Original Qualities do exist without the Mind, in unthinking Substances, do at the same time acknowledge that Colours, Sounds, Heat, Cold, and suchlike secondary Qualities, do not, which they tell us are Sensations existing in the Mind alone, that depend on and are occasioned by the different Size, Texture and Motion of the minute Particles of Matter. This they take for an undoubted Truth, which they can demonstrate beyond all Exception. Now if it be certain, that those original Qualities are inseparably united with the other sensible Qualities, and not, even in Thought, capable of being abstracted from them, it plainly follows that they exist only in the Mind. But I desire any one to react and try, whether he can by any Abstraction of Thought, conceive the Extension and Motion of a Body, without all other sensible Qualities. For my own part, I see evidently that it is not in my power to frame an Idea of a Body extended and moved, but I must withal give it some Colour or other sensible Quality which is acknowledged to exist only in the Mind. In short, Extension, Figure, and Motion, abstracted
from all other Qualities, are inconceivable. Where therefore the other sensible Qualities are, there must these be also, to wit, in the Mind and no where else."

(Berkeley, George. Principles of Human Knowledge. 1710. Part 1, §§9-10)

Atla wrote: ↑June 8th, 2019, 4:16 am2. Since there is ZERO scientific evidence that qualia is a restricted to neural networks, the best scientific explanation is that qualia isn't restricted to neural networks.

Surely not, since there is zero scientific evidence for the panpsychistic assertion that consciousness is independent of animal brains and organisms and also occurs outside the animal kingdom; and there is sufficient scientific evidence for the brain-dependence of animal consciousness. Of course, panpsychists can reply that it doesn't follow that nonanimal consciousness is brain-dependent. But…

"Then there is the question of the need for a brain. We normally suppose that one of these is pretty useful when it comes to having a mind, indeed a sine qua non (even if it’s made of silicon); we suppose that, at a minimum, a physical object has to exhibit the right degree of complexity before it can make a mind. But the panpsychist is having none of it: you get to have a mind well before even organic cells come on the market, before molecules indeed. Actually, you get mentality—experience—at the point of the Big Bang, fifteen billion years before brains are minted. So brains are a kind of contingency, a kind of pointless luxury when it comes to possessing mental states. It becomes puzzling why we have them at all, and why they are so big and fragile; atoms don’t need them, so why do we? And this puzzle only becomes more severe when we remind ourselves that the panpsychist has to believe in full-throttle pre-cerebral mentality— genuine experiences of red and pangs of hunger and spasms of lust. As Eddington puts it, the mental world that we are acquainted with in introspection is a window onto the world of the physical universe, and the two are qualitatively alike: introspection tells us what matter is like from the inside, whether it is in our brain or not. But then the brain isn’t necessary for the kind of experiential property it reveals to us; it is only necessary for the revealing to occur. What is revealed by introspection is spread over the entire physical universe. In fact, it would not be stretching a point to say that all bits of matter—from strings, to quarks, to atoms, to molecules, to cells, to organs, to animals—are themselves brains. There can be brains without brains! But if so, why bother with brains?"

(McGinn, Colin. "Hard Questions: Comments on Galen Strawson." Journal of Consciousness Studies 13, no. 10/11 (2006): 90–99. pp. 96-7)

"Why do we have complex brains at all if they are so dispensable in the functioning of our minds? Why does brain damage obliterate mental faculties if minds do not owe their existence to brains? Why were there not minds floating about before brains ever evolved? Why are all mental changes actually accompanied by brain changes? The fact is that minds have their deep roots in brains. They are not just temporary residents of brains, like wandering nomads in the desert. Deracinate them and they lose their handle on reality. Minds don't merely occupy brains, they are somehow constituted by brains. That is why the minds of different species vary, why minds develop in concert with brains, why the health of your brain makes all the difference to the life of your mind. Minds and brains are not ships that pass in the night; the brain is the very lifeblood of the mind."

(McGinn, Colin. The Mysterious Flame: Conscious Minds in a Material World. New York: Basic Books, 1999. pp. 27-8)

Atla wrote: ↑June 7th, 2019, 2:00 pm Let's throw in a few more abstract words, like all good materialists do, shall we?

Qualia is a special kind of emergent property arising functionally out of the computational complexity of neural information processing patterns in the CNS.

That sounds confusing enough so surely it's enough to do the trick?

If "materialism" means "reductive materialism", then it denies that qualia are (ontologically) emergent qualities, since (ontological) emergentism is a form of property dualism—which reductive materialism certainly isn't.

However, it's a mistake to think that (ontological) emergentism is incompatible with materialism, because emergent qualia may be regarded as physical qualities sui generis that are irreducible to any other kind of physical qualities.

Arguably, whatever naturally emerges from something purely physical is physical itself, since how could something purely physical naturally produce anything nonphysical?

Natural consciousness makes sense only in the context of biological/zoological evolution: Behave is what organisms do, and consciousness (in the form of subjective sensations) is useful for an animal's control and adaptation of behavior to varying environmental conditions.

Consciousness > The functional question: Why does consciousness exist?

Atla wrote: ↑June 7th, 2019, 2:00 pm Let's throw in a few more abstract words, like all good materialists do, shall we?
Qualia is a special kind of emergent property arising functionally out of the computational complexity of neural information processing patterns in the CNS.
That sounds confusing enough so surely it's enough to do the trick?

Michael Gazzaniga, one the leading neuroscientists in the world, admits that…

"Despite centuries of research, nobody fully understands how the convoluted mesh of biological tissue inside our heads produces the experiences of our everyday life."

(Gazzaniga, Michael S. The Consciousness Instinct: Unraveling the Mystery of How the Brain Makes the Mind. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2018. pp. 83-4)

That said, as you can gather from the subtitle of his book, he and his colleagues do not doubt that the brain makes the (conscious) mind, not seeing any good, scientifically plausible reasons to do so. In particular, the pessimistic prediction made by supermaterialists/-naturalists that natural/physical science is incapable in principle of solving the hard problem and closing the explanatory gap is nothing but wishful thinking on their part.

"The hard-problem view has a pinch of defeatism in it. I suspect that for some people it also has a pinch of religiosity. It is a keep-your-scientific-hands-off -my-mystery perspective. One conceptual difficulty with the hard-problem view is that it argues against any explanation of consciousness without knowing what explanations might arise. It is difficult to make a cogent argument against the unknown. Perhaps an explanation exists such that, once we see what it is, once we understand it, we will find that it makes sense and accounts for consciousness."

(Graziano, Michael S. Consciousness and the Social Brain. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. p. 7)

"If we want to understand consciousness and its basis, we should study its source—neural activity at its most rudimentary level, and then track the phenomenon, step by step, through to its more advanced manifestations, ultimately to us humans. So the approach would be the same as the one we have taken in addressing the problem of abiogenesis—start simple. A fascinating scientific journey awaits us."

(Pross, Addy. What is Life? How Chemistry becomes Biology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. p. 178)

Good idea, but you shouldn't start too simple and look for consciousness in nonbiological systems (nonorganisms) lacking a nervous system: single subatomic particles, atoms, or molecules; or pebbles, stones, rocks, mountains, puddles, ponds, lakes, oceans, dunes, deserts; or planets, stars, galaxies, the cosmos (as a whole).

"Panpsychism is surely one of the loveliest and most tempting views of reality ever devised; and it is not without its respectable motivations either. There are good arguments for it, and it would be wonderful if it were true—theoretically, aesthetically, humanly. Any reflective person must feel the pull of panpsychism once in a while. It’s almost as good as pantheism! The trouble is that it’s a complete myth, a comforting piece of utter balderdash. Sorry Galen [Strawson], I’m just not down with it (and isn’t there something vaguely hippyish, i.e. stoned, about the doctrine?)."

(McGinn, Colin. "Hard Questions: Comments on Galen Strawson." Journal of Consciousness Studies 13, no. 10/11 (2006): 90–99. p. 93)